Massively on the Go: Pokemon GO’s January dough

    
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Pokemon Go’s Dual Destiny season continues in January, and Niantic’s starting the year with some new(ish) pokemon it’s teasing. Some are genuinely new, like Fidough, but I’m guessing mystery Dynamax ‘mon will just be, well, pokemon we have but in Dynamax flavor. Take that however you wish.

So for today’s Massively on the Go we’re going to go over what we know right now, but for fun we’ll also speculate on what’s on the horizon as 2025 begins.

Raid-wise, we don’t have anything new or super meta-relevant for raiders. Yes, you can farm normal Dialga and Palkia for candy for their Origine forms or use them as admittedly lesser version of their other forms for PvP, and the same basically goes for Deoxys’ Attack (basically useless) and Defense (a PvP staple), yeah. Save your raid passes for the future, unless you’re desperate for candy or even Registeel (which you’ll probably want to Purify its weekend Shadow form, but it’s a lot of work for something you then have to gamble for proper PvP stats).

For Dynamax ‘mon that we know of, Beldum from January 20th-27th is the one to watch for, but the Starters are also mostly worth it, as Charmander’s line is quite flexible and the others have good bulk.

The mystery ‘mon for Max Monday was originally teased with three pokemon, the last coming in February. If it’s specifically a set of three, it could be the Galarian starters, as Niantic seems to be releasing ‘mon that have a Gigantamax form as Dynamax forms, especially as they’ve been skipped for the Paldean starters for Community Day moves. Similarly, it could be Pikachu, Meowth, and Eevee, which oddly all have Gigantamax forms despite being unevolved ‘mon. There are no other events directly overlapping with these dates, so this is the best I can think of. As always, check back later when we may get further hints or revelations.

1/9 Update: We were right that it was a set of three, but Niantic did what many were worried about: releasing Dynamax legendaries. Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres are coming to Dynamax Raids in Legendary Flight, where each legendary bird appears during Max Monday and then can continue to spawn during the week, along with “good counters” to combat them.

The problem is that Rock-type pokemon, or at least pokemon with a Rock fast attack, are best against the birds, especially as two have double weakness to that type… and we have none. That means that especially due to the fact that our Dynamax+ raid options are limited, the legendary birds will be far more difficult than they were when they originally appeared in raids, as common spawn Golem was a great option for all three back then. What Niantic is giving during each week is ok, though it should be noted Excadrill might have some advantage with Metal Claw and Rock Slide for Articuno and has many resistances against Zapdos (the Grasses are weak to Flying…). These should be tier 5 raids instead of the tier 6 that are Gigantamax raids, but even my new players are dreading this event more than showing excitement, and that’s telling. Articuno, the bulkiest of them, barely edges out Lapras in overall Ice-type bulkiness but lacks a Gigantamax form, and for normal raids, only Moltres is barely relevant, and often as a Shadow ‘mon, not original flavored.

For events, we start out the month with Fidough Fetch, oddly starting at 3 p.m. on January 3rd to January 7th at 10 p.m. While Fidough doesn’t immediately release then (for all time zones at least), it’s low on the unlock ladder, as you can see above. For normal raiding, leave the pup at home, but it may see some other uses. In Scarlet and Violetit was often useful in Tera Raids. We may not be getting Tera Raids, but if we do get them (or Niantic puts it in the Dynamax pool, which I kind of doubt), you may want it for that. It is predicted to make a splash in Great League and possibly as a spice pick in Ultra League, as per JRE. We’ll update this as we learn more.

During that, on January 5th is Sprigatito Community Day. Yes, we’re apparently skipping the Gen 8 Dynamax-able ‘mon, and worse, poor Sprig’s line doesn’t become relevant in at least raids with this CD, even though it’s also getting Flower Trick. Word’s still out on PvP viability. It’ll be nice to have the shiny, I guess, and there is 3x stardust, but… yeah. The only thing that may make it more exciting to min-maxers is if gets a Dynamax release, but that would be for fast Fast Attacking, not its charged attacks.

1/3 Update: And unless something changes soon, it seems the Spriggy line will be useless for PvP when Community Day rolls around. It’ll be slightly more useable if Niantic actually gives it Magical Leaf or Sucker Punch but as Niantic’s started off this year with some questionable actions, including (from my experience) rolling back their past policy of replacing accidentally used premium items due to their lack of a proper yes/no confirmation screen, I wouldn’t get my hopes up.

Oddly, we have Fashion Week from January 10th-19th. This is odd because, historically, we’re lucky if Fashion Week is even seven days (Niantic really needs to learn what constitutes a day or week in general), and they’re yearly, and they’re in fall. 2024 didn’t get a Fashion Week at all, whereas 2025’s getting it at the start. Nitpicking out of the way, we usually see Avatar fashion items on sale and new costume ‘mon, sometimes even ones that can evolve, plus there’s going to be a Rocket Takeover attached to it (expect new Shadow ‘mon, possibly looking fabulous, and TMing away Frustration), so I have high expectations for this event. As usual, though, stay tuned for updates.

1/2/2025 Update: We now have official details on the event and woo boy, Niantic is not looking to make friends this year. Niantic is skipping the traditional avatar item sale, Beanie Wooper isn’t coming back nor or some other previous Fashion Week ‘mon, Hat Kirlia isn’t evolving, and the newest Fashion ‘mon, Minccino, is only available through raids. Now some of these could be rectified with the Rocket Takeover event, but it would be extremely odd for Team Rocket to make changes that benefit consumers, so I’m not holding my breath.

1/6 Update: We now have official details on the event and once again Niantic isn’t doing themselves any favors. As predicted, Niantic didn’t use the event to add the traditional avatar item sales, no new fashion ‘mon are coming out/back besides Croagunk in photobombs, and Hat Kirlia still can’t evolve. Worse, the newly released Shroodle line will be locked behind 12k eggs. It’s a largely collector-oriented ‘mon, as it barely goes above 2500cp making it useless in raids. Our often-cited PvP specialist, JRE, notes that its evolution, along with most of the other new Shadow ‘mon, are useless for PvP aside from Shadow Diggersby’s line being a slight upgrade and Shadow Palkia. However, Shadow Palkia is kind of interesting, being a slight upgrade from Origin Palkia with Spacial Rend. That’s basically below Megas and above everything else. That being said though, you’re losing more candy and stardust investing in it over another Spacial Rend Palkia, so most players probably won’t/can’t invest in this ‘mon much, and you only get a chance to catch one from Giovanni.

As usual, though, we still can TM Frustration away and get more Rocket battles via more frequent Rocket balloons and Rocket Pokestops.

On January 11th from 2 p.m.-5 p.m., we finally have Mega Gallade Raid Day, a Mega we’ve been expecting for a while now. No, it’s not a great pokemon in general, as we discussed in our article on the best Megas to invest in, but it’s a side-grade and it may be a pokemon you can walk for Mega Energy for two different Megas. The only other pokemon kind of like this at the moment is Mega Charizard, but that’s one Pokemon with two Megas, while the Raltz line has two different final evolutions that get their own Megas. Anyway, maybe we’ll finally see hat Kirlia able to evolve!

1/10 Update: For efficiency, a Male Gardevoire, Male Kirlia, Male Ralts, or any Gallade will also generate Mega Gardevoire energy once you’ve already obtained those individual Megas.

1/23 Update: The post has been updated. There’ll also be new research that awards Gardevoir and Gallade mega energy, and you can evolve Kirlia until Feb 1 at 10 p.m. to get it’s event move, Synchronoise, which admittedly isn’t a very useful move outside of Shadow Gardevoire.

https://twitter.com/g47ix/status/1876373338094002274

1/7 Update: January 19th from 2 p.m. – 5 p.m. will be Shadow Ho-oh Raid Day. What’s especially interesting about this event is that the event allows its signature move, Sacred Fire, to be TMable. We haven’t had this sort of thing happen in a while either. While it’s no Sacred Fire+(+), it does make Ho-Oh much more useable. That being said, Shadow Charizard, Shadow Blaziken, non-Shadow Heatran, and others still outrank it in some cases of a double weakness to Fire, so unless you’re a new player, love the shiny, or want more xp/XL Rare Candy from the event ticket, it’s not a high priority event.

January 21st-26th will be Steeled Resolve, a new event that clearly will involve Steel Pokemon, and Rookidee’s line in particular is expected to be introduced due to its central feature on the current loading screen.

1/10 Update: We now have official event details and, unsurprisingly, it does involve both Rookidee and some Steel pokemon, but… dang, this event feels all over the place. It’s essentially a Great League/PvP event with a new release. TMing away Frustration so soon after a Rocket event is weird but not unwelcome, and the same can be said for Hydro Canon on Feralagtr. Iron Head already being considered a Legacy move for the soon-to-be-released Corviknight is odd, especially since it’ll only be in 2k eggs with junk or come to Magnetic Lures, but the rest of the event, while not really fitting much of a theme, seems above average for the most part.

On the 25th we’ll see a Community Day Classic. One would assume this too would be a Steel type, possibly Piplup (final form is Water/Steel), (Alola) Sandshrew (because the Alola form is part Steel), but not Beldum as it was featured for a CDC this past August. Of course, Niantic could also do Raltz (since we’re getting Mega Gallade this month) or throw us another curveball, so check back here for updates.

1/7 Update: Our final guess was correct and it is indeed Raltz, with 1/4 hatch to boot!

Finally, from January 29th to February 2nd we have Lunar New Year. Traditionally this event is all about lucky friendship/trades, so you may want to hold onto anything you want to get lucky in 2025. Oh, yeah, and zodiac-animal-themed ‘mon spawn too. This will be the year of the snake, so expect snakey pokemon, maybe even another Rayquaza event, as it’s a pretty snakey dragon people love. That’s a speculation though, so once again, check back later for more details.

1/14 Update: We now have event details and we did get some details correct. Obviously it’s snake themed-ish, with Ekans being the main feature, but Dratini (snakey dragon), Gyarados (fake snakey dragon), Onix, Snivvy, and Dunsparce (fat fake snake) are all featured too. The egg contents and shiny Nosepass make no sense to me at all, especially since the zodiac element is wood this year. We were also correct about the lucky friends and trades being a thing again, but while Rayquaza wasn’t mentioned, Zygarde of all things was, in that you can at least get 10 cells from research. That’s not a ton, as the final form requires 200 (250 if you’re still on the base form), but it does help.

As usual, we’ll wrap this up with the Spotlight hours. Double stardust is a nice start to the year, though Voltorb’s line isn’t terribly useful (even if the shines are). Roselia’s better than the double catch xp on January 14th, as it’s still fairly useful as a Grass-type and it’s actually more useful without it’s Community Day Fast Move (Bullet Seed > Magical Leaf). Paldean Wooper on January 21st after the December round-up event seems like a slap in the fast, and double catch candy only reinforces that, though if Rookidee or other new pokemon come out and can be caught via research quests, this could be a good event to get more candy for ’em. Finally, January 28th with Yungoos is trash day, both because this pokemon’s not useful and because it’s double transfer day.

That’s probably all for now, readers, but check back for updates as full details come out at their usual glacial pace. Stay safe out there, trainers!

CDN media
Via LeekDuck

1/16 Update (edited 6:30 p.m. for math): It seems Niantic may have realized how poorly prepared the bulk of the playerbase is for Legendary Dynamax Raids, as we’re getting a very last minute event: Legendary Flight Lead-Up Timed Research for each legendary bird, starting January 17th at 10 a.m. local time for Articuno first, ending on the 20th. Zapdos then gets one at the same time from the 24th-27th, followed by Moltres’ from January 31st to February 3rd. One big component of these is a 3/4 particle cost for powering up Max Moves.

The problem with these events, though, is that they require both using particles to raid and unlock abilities, which is one of the key reasons the feature is harshly judged. On the one hand, it’s nice to get 3 Dynamax ‘mon plus 500 particles, but leveling one Max Move is going to cost 300 particles just for the unlock, you need 450 for each of the three Max Move level ups, and the easiest battles cost 250 each. That means the cheapest the event costs in terms of particles is 2,500 particles, which is more than three days worth of particles (if you only get the 800 cap), or 75% of the event. Veteran players, like myself, who want to max out Max moves (600 particles each during the event) need 2,850 particles. This actually gets harsher considering the events bleed into the actual Legendary Flight Max Monday events, and they don’t even award XL Candies which would help unlock said Max level Max moves. Not cool, Niantic. Not cool.

Massively OP’s Andrew Ross is an admitted Pokemon geek and expert ARG-watcher. Nobody knows Niantic and Nintendo like he does! His Massively on the Go column covers Pokemon Go as well as other mobile MMOs and augmented reality titles!
Pokemon Go studio Niantic is considered a controversial gaming company owing to multiple scandals and deceptions, starting with the Wi-Spy privacy scandal; over the years, it’s repeatedly failed to secure player data, endangered players during the pandemic, and refused to address documented stalking in POGO. It also rolled back popular accessibility features to incentivize data collection, faked data, and lied about event results. Following 2021’s community-driven Pokemon No boycott, Niantic vowed transparency and communication; it has not delivered.
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